Subject: Peter Adkinson's Hidden Agenda Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 02:55:20 -0500 From: Ian and Karen Taylor To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Yikes! International espionage is a tricky business. After settling into the USA nicely after leaving Australia, I finally managed to snatch a valuable piece of WotC history after hiding in the WotC executive toilet. (Luckily most of them don't make it, but that's a story for Jerry Springer) Now I can finally justify my existence here in your fine country. INFINITE MONKEYS PRESENTS: PETER ADKINSON'S HIDDEN AGENDA! That's right folks, the recent post made by the head Wizard himself defending the proposed changes to 6th Ed caused as many ripples of discontent at WotC Corporeal HQ as it did in Magic land! I have here a copy of the memo that was circulated by PDA to all senior staff members (and the fabled 'inner circle') Don't squander this information. Many monkeys died to being it to you. _________________________________________________________________ MEMORANDUM From: Peter Adkinson To: All senior staff members CC: Dalai Lama, Pope John Paul II, Elvis Presley, Walt Disney's Weird Frozen Head, Smoking Man, 'Weird Al' Yankovic. Re: Proposed changes to 6th Edition of Magic: the Gathering. Recent tests conducted in the WotC scientific research facility have concluded that a demented rabbit with half a brain takes almost an entire hour to fully understand the rules under 5th Edition. Consequently, there needs to be a thorough reworking of all cards and game mechanics. I have recently posted to the Dojo, making certain promises while under the effects of a caffiene high. It's now up to us as a team (or rather you, as the less-well-paid members of the team) to come up with rules fixes for the overcomplicated 5th Edition cards. 1. We want to make Magic a classic game like Chess or Go. We can best achieve this in two ways. (1), we make 4 copies of each and every card, and sell them in a boxed set for US$5,000 each. The down side is that we'll lose a lot of money, but everybody will have an equal footing, or... (2) We can simply purchase the rights to Chess and Go. This will be much more cost effective, as the rights to these games are probably held by really really dead guys. After the purchase, we will obviously need to rework the rules of both games, as I doubt that everyone understands that whole 'Check' rule, and we can ditch those stupid horse things... 2. No more Interrupts. This is actually the tip of a much bigger iceberg. I was taught as a young boy that interrupting is very rude, and we don't want to offend any potentially new customers. Consequently, we will be changing a few mechanics, and also a renaming a few cards. The watered-down names of Portal cards has gotten such a hugely positive response from my grandmother that I think we need to go over the whole slew of cards. Some examples I believe underline my vision in this venture: Wrath of God (Everybody Goes Home) Flesh Reaver (Bad Doggy) Pestilence (Sniffly Pox) Pit Trap (Unwelcome Mat) Cursed Scroll (TV Guide) 3. No more Damage Prevention Phase. There is a puzzle: How do you eliminate crime? Make everything legal. That's what we will do. Magic will no longer be about 'damaging' your opponent. From now on, players will start with 20 points of Tolerance(TM), 'Damage' will become 'Irritation' and what was formerly known as 'Damage Prevention' will now be referred to as 'Positive Reinforcement' That will help to achieve my vision of a game devoid of violence and chock-full-o-buzzwords. 4. No more Mana Pool. Frankly I'm sick and tired of typographical errors showing up on playtest cards. It's not so much the unprofessionalism, but the annoying giggling coming from R&D over a new card that adds to your 'Mana Poo' 5. Tapped Artifacts will still function normally. Actually, this is kind of false. The rule will be removed from the rulebook and added to the cards, so we can make the rulebook easier to understand. We'll have to ditch the flavour text of course. We'll do something with it of course, because we paid for it. Until further notice the flovour text will replace the rules text that formerly appeared in the rulebook. Our final goal should be a rulebook that contains nothing more than random latently-obscene quotes about Squee and his Toy, and a rulebook you can't read entirely until you own all the cards. My eventual goal is to make slight changes to the cards for each set, so that when 14th Edition comes around, every single card will be Summon Goblin. I like Goblins. A lot. In closing, I hope that we can achieve the minor changes by the time 6th Edition goes to print, otherwise I will have to stand at the Space Needle for an hour wearing nothing but a Lara Croft T-shirt because of a bet that I made with a deranged homeless man down near the 7-11. Stay on Target (BTW, we just bought Lucasfilm, so I can say this) Peter D. Adkinson Supreme Lord and Master of your puny, puny world. _________________________________________________________________ That's all I have. If you found this document useful, please send me deodorant. My wife really, really wants you to. (Personally I think it tastes terrible.) Ian Taylor "How the %&*# am I supposed to move THAT?" -Archimedes (early quote) Disclaimer: I mean no disrespect to WotC or Mr Adkinson, and if he feels like giving me a job there at WotC, I will be prepared to lick a clown's butt.